Boy Eats Drum Machine

Boy Eats Drum Machine in-studio @ OPB, 9-18-08. Native Portlander Jon Ragel has made music under the name Boy Eats Drum Machine for the last eight years. After recording a few demos, he released his first official album, Pleasure, in 2005, which he followed up last year with Two Ghosts, a concept album chronicling a pair of ill-fated lovers in a dystopian, not-too-distant future. His latest release, Booomboxxx, comes out this month on Portland label Tender Loving Empire.

Ragel makes his music using guitar, keyboard, sax, a turntable/sampler combo, and uses beats culled from Portland drummers in a collection called Bridgetown Breaks. He performs live using a bed of prerecorded tracks and an array of instruments around him, turntable included. He talks about the new record, learning the turntable as a “virtuoso instrument,” the Portland music scene’s evolution over the years, and the perennial Stones vs. Beatles vs. Milli Vanilli debate.